Egypt finds 4,300-year-old judge's tomb near Cairo

An Egyptian-Spanish archaeological mission has uncovered a 4,300-year-old tomb near Cairo belonging to Yunmen, an ancient judge-like official who heard the complaints of ordinary people, Egyptian authorities said.

The tomb was found at Saqqara, a necropolis south of Cairo, and dates to the reign of Pharaoh Djedkare Isesi in the 24th century BC, Egypt's tourism and antiquities ministry said.

The ministry said Yunmen was a high-ranking official whose duties included listening to the appeals of the kingdom's subjects and weighing their complaints before the state.

Amr al-Tayeb, director of the Saqqara archaeological site, said Yunmen's duties "align with the ancient Egyptian concept of Maat", the goddess and principle of truth, justice and social order.

The tomb was discovered during this summer's excavation season in the Mariette Cemetery area of northern Saqqara as part of a joint project by the Autonomous University of Barcelona and Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities.

The mastaba, a flat-roofed tomb typically built for elite officials, contains two funerary chapels: one for Yunmen and another for his father, Ity, a senior scribe responsible for overseeing agricultural lands and offerings.

Yunmen's chapel includes carved reliefs showing farmers at work, servants carrying offerings and funerary rites. The ministry said many of the paintings have retained their original colours after more than 40 centuries beneath the desert sands.

Archaeologists also uncovered an ornate facade with funerary inscriptions and formal depictions of the tomb owner. In Ity's chapel, traces of painted offering scenes survive alongside a false door, a symbolic gateway through which the dead were believed to receive sustenance from the living.